I’ve been getting my comics from my local shop for almost thirty years. Sure, I’ll buy trades from Amazon – and before that, play.com if anyone remembers them – in order to save myself a few pounds and get them delivered the next day, but for my weekly fix, for the regular series on my pull list, I head to my comic shop on a Friday or Saturday.

The owner’s been good to me over the years – he knows what I like and has suggested stuff every now and then that perhaps I wouldn’t have tried. Some of it I enjoyed, some I didn’t, but it’s nice to have that interaction.

With Dark Nights: Metal, I told the owner that I’d be getting the main series but not the one-shot tie ins; as you’ll see soon enough, I’m having to build a new bookcase to house my ever expanding collection of comics, and yet more physical copies just didn’t sit well with me.

A few days ago, I was browsing Comixology more out of curiosity than anything else. I’ve bought a handful of items from them – the digital Crisis on Infinite Earths and the War of The Gods collection – when I saw Brave and The Bold #28 to #30 on the site, the first appearance of the Justice League of America. While I have the issues in the Showcase Presents collections, and the Archive editions that came out years ago, the chances of me owning the actual issues are remote. However, for under a fiver, I could get the three of them digitally. A few clicks of a button later and there they sat, in my books in the Comixology cloud.

And then I started looking around at what else was out there.

And started to succumb.

I bought all twenty three issues of Fate, the ridiculous 90s series that came out of Zero Hour and transformed Dr Fate into a dagger wielding, pouch strap wearing magician. I have both Guy Gardner: Reborn and Guy Gardner: Warrior on my wish list, alongside Captain Atom and LEGION. I’ve even saved Anima for later – you know, because I’m currently annotating Bloodlines so it sort of counts as research.

Looking back at some old copies of Justice League America and Justice League Europe recently and I remembered the little pictures of characters that used to appear in the issue number box on DC comics back in the early 90s. Oddly, despite the larger membership at the time, the JLA only had two pairs:

JLE fared a little better:

and even managed to get a few more in after their revamp and new members:

I’d thought for a while that JLA/JLE were the only titles with those but a quick look through my collection turned up these from Green Lantern:

A couple from the Justice Society

(There was a Wildcat one but he was largely obscured by the cover art) as well as some odds and sods:

A little detail on the cover which always appealed to me for some reason.

I picked up the first issue of Green Lantern Corps: Edge of Oblivion this week and, on the whole, it wasn’t too bad – certainly no better or worse than Green Lantern: Lost Army which it follows. However, being the nit picking kind of guy I am, one thing did jump out at me.

Towards the start of the issue, the Corps members led by John Stewart are gathering to discuss what happens and this conversation takes place:

First glance that’s nothing unusual – they need to find the other Corps members and look for a way back to the universe and time they left behind.

But hang on, let’s take a closer look:

Guy Gardner says they’ve been exploring the dying universe for six months.

John Stewart says finding the missing Corps members needs to be their first priority.

First priority?! If that’s the case, why have they spent six months exploring? Why haven’t they spent six months looking for the rest of the Corps?

It’s a situation made all the more absurd because Graf Toren comes up with the idea of asking Mogo to shine like a beacon and what do you know? The rest of the Corps see it and head towards it!

Six months of not bothering to look for the missing Corps members then, when they decide to, they find them in five minutes!